The FABRICATOR® is North America's leading magazine for the metal forming and fabricating industry. The magazine delivers the news, technical articles, and case histories that enable fabricators to do their jobs more efficiently. The FABRICATOR has served the industry since 1971. Print subscriptions are free to qualified persons in North America involved in metal forming and fabricating.

Selected articles from the April 2013 issue available online:

Virtual weld training tools have emerged in recent years, and some organizations have looked to them to help beginners learn welding basics before firing up the arc. Meanwhile, others are looking for a training device that better reflects the real-world activities associated with welding in a manufacturing environment. A new training device has emerged to bridge that virtual world with the real world.

In this fourth installment of Columnist Gerald Davis' series on job estimating, he describes the use of planning outlines—which resemble work orders—to structure the estimator’s report of production expenses.

Conductix-Wampfler, Omaha, Neb., developed software that
integrates information from CAD, product data management, ERP,
and customer relationship management. Built on the company's
success, the software is now available for others interested in ensuring
everyone in the business is on the same page.

A company structure can be an attractive size and shape, with a
seemingly strong foundation--but still be a house of cards. Therefore,
it’s important to test the robustness of a company’s structure to
determine whether it is what it appears to be.

Chronic exposure to manganese oxide fumes, which occur when manganese metal is heated and reacts with oxygen, can lead to damage to the central nervous system. Welders are especially susceptible to this disease, called maganism by the National Institutes of Health, because manganese is found in many welding rods and filler metals to promote hardness. The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists recently issued guidance that dramatically reduced suggested threshold limit values. Because many metal fabricators use this guidance to manage worker exposure, they now are having to rethink how they approach personal protective equipment.

Submerged arc welding is known as a process that can result in high welding speeds and deposition rates. However, in today's manufacturing reality, engineers are always looking to boost productivity—even for already productive processes. Fortunately, companies have three common approaches to consider to increase the performance of their submerged arc welding systems.

A shop is only as productive as its constraint process—that is, its
bottleneck. All that adaptability in upstream processes may not make
a part cost less if it takes days or weeks to build a new weld fixture.
A modular approach to weld fixturing can help.

The speed of fabricating is increasing at a rapid pace, but the press brake remains a bottleneck for many companies. Laser cutting and punching machines can run unattended if necessary without the need to program a robot, but the same can't be said for a press brake. Human operators still are pretty much a necessity. Advancements in bending software, however, can help to streamline the bending process. Fabricators only need to give it a try.

Several factors come into play when trying to determine the
appropriate lifespan of a punch before major maintenance or
replacement is required. If a fabricating operation is knowledgeable
about punching activities and vigilant about organization and
maintenance, it can expect to get the most out of its tooling.

After his yacht-building business dried up in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, entrepreneur Scott Gerber decided to build a simple sculpture from tubing. Based on a basic stick figure, the first one was a fisherman. Gerber placed a few around town, encountered some interest, and suddenly a new business was born.

Everyone knows that metal fabricators need to be good at quick
turnarounds. Super Steel became just that, hitting the financial skids
in 2009 and transforming itself into a quick-turn fabricator and key
manufacturing supplier to the freight rail industry in just three years.

After selling his metal fabricating business in 2006, Jim Lee is back in the game with North Topeka Fabrication. But even in the short time that he was gone, metal fabricating technology has advanced and forced him to ask how the shop could apply new technology to grow the business. That led the company to invest in a fiber laser cutting machine, and the decision has thrown the shop into the thick of new business opportunities.

The Fabricator Blog

Knowing and appreciating the craft of metal fabrication - by Tim HestonThe recipe for precision metal fabrication includes technology and craft. We hear a lot about the technology, but not so much about the craft.